A Giraffe Touched Me ... and Other Fun Events

My mom was here for the only nice week that we've had in a long time at least weather wise. It's currently POURING outside and I have the heater on. Normally I don't mind the weather around here, but I'm cold and my head hurts, so I feel like complaining.

But, my mom lucked out on the weather. She also lucked out that I had a pretty busy week so she got to help me. Hooray for her!


We started the week with a little bit of shopping and decorating. (As soon as I find some pictures for the frames, I'll show you my beautiful new shelves in the bathroom.) Then it was on to cutting vinyl for the Family Home Evening boards. (Which turned out GREAT! Thanks for all your help Mom!)


Then, the real fun started.


I was trying to find something new and exciting to do when my mom came. She's been here a lot and I get tired of the same-old-same-old. I love zoos so I started thinking about going to the zoo. We have a great little zoo in Tacoma called Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. It's nice, small, but nice. But we've already been there. So, I got really brave and started looking into going to Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. They've been talking a lot about their new meerkat exhibit, so it got me looking at the website where I found out they had a Giraffe Feeding program. This was the clincher for me. You see, my mom LOVES giraffes. They're pretty much her favorite animal. When we were in San Diego about a year and a half ago, there was a Giraffe Feeding thing at the Wild Animal Park, but it cost $90. Yeah, $90! That was just too much for me to want to do it. But, here at Woodland Park Zoo it cost $5. I can handle $5 so off we went.


We hopped on the ferry and headed to Seattle.

Have you ever wondered what your GPS would look like if you were on a ferry in the middle of the Sound? I had...this is what it looked like. Kind of funny. We're in the middle of the water, ahh!

Here are some of the fun animals we saw at the zoo:

I have to say that I was kind of disappointed in the meerkat exhibit after all the hoopla! There are ads EVERYWHERE you look. The map even has this BIG old sign pointing to the meerkat exhibit. Then you get there and there are 20,000 people and 5 meerkats. So, don't go to Woodland Park Zoo for the meerkats. You'll be disappointed.
When we saw the orangutan's enclosure, we couldn't see any orangs...then we looked closer and saw that they were all asleep under burlap sacks. Interesting.

And then to the reason for coming! Feeding the giraffes. I must say, this is well worth it!
We got up to the feeding platform and there were three giraffes in front of us. The keeper talked about what to do for a minute, then he blew a whistle and the big male giraffe came right over and started eating out of our hands. It was really cool!
You were only up there for about 10 minutes, but it was really cool. I would totally spend $5 and do that again.

Then we went over to the bird exhibit where you could feed them. Unfortunately, it was later in the day so they weren't that hungry. You basically had to put the food right in front of them for them to care, but they were still pretty.
And just to prove that we were there...
We didn't hit any horrible traffic on the way home, so it was a good day!

Then on Friday, we went and got pedicures...ahhh...then picked up Brent from work. We were going to go to the Viking Fest in Poulsbo. After much confusion on where to park, we got the Viking Fest and it was...well....REALLY disappointing. The "Food and Craft Fair" consisted of about 20 booths. Not too cool. So we went home and made crepes with nutella in them. YUM!

On Saturday, we had a slow morning, then went to the Gig Harbor Farmer's Market, which was fun, but not as fun as the Port Orchard one because the Port Orchard one is right on the water. Then off to Kopachuck State Park. We always pass the sign for Kopachuck State Park, but we've never been there. It was a nice park. Although it was quite a hike getting back to the car from the beach, but I think it was worth it.
I had to put this one in because Brent is actually smiling. It was surprising!
As you can see, it was a beautiful day, but no where near warm enough to be in the water! I swear, kids don't feel the cold!

So, to sum up:
Woodland Park Zoo for the Meerkats - No
Woodland Park Zoo for the Giraffes - HECK YEAH! The rest of the zoo isn't that bad either.
Viking Fest - a big old NO!
Kopachuck State Park - wear your walking shoes, but yep!

All around a good week! Thanks for coming Mom!